On My Mind - Thoughts on Learning, Growing and Evolving

I'm back and today, I want to write about how a self-actualizing person must continue to expand their life and their beliefs while at the same time narrowing their path.  What this means is that a well lived life needs to incorporate many different aspects while at the same time continuing to fine tune the whole thing.  Because the truth is that if we are open to everything , then we become scattered and fragmented.  Being open minded and free spirited is a great thing, but at some point we need to focus and begin to narrow our path to the things that are indeed important, that is, key to our self-development.  Let me give you an example – let’s say that you are this open minded person and love to learn new things and while you are at work, or with your friends, someone mentions some new thing and you go home and start Googling it and for the next few days, weeks, even months your mind is filled with this new information, but then one day you wake up and reali...

Today’s blog is written to announce that for the next few months I will be dedicating myself to writing another book and will not be posting any more blogs until the book is completed and published, sometime in the Spring or early Summer of 2020.   In case you are wondering what the book is about – it will incorporate many of the ideas I have written about here on my blog and on other platforms.  I will also include new and emerging ideas I have not written about before so that the book will have profound and creative concepts that I hope will surprise and delight you.  Of course, I believe these ideas will inspire and encourage you to be your own true, authentic self as well.  The key to all of this is that I can't write and talk about these things without making sure I myself am living that kind of life as well.     In addition to announcing writing a new book, I am also announcing today that my work is evolving from individual, one-on-one work, t...

We Need a Comeback Election for the Ages I don’t usually write about politics or sports here on my blog but I watched the final game of the World Series last night and when the Washington National’s won I thought that’s the kind of good news, that is, the kind of miracle we need in the upcoming presidential election. According to Dave Sheinin and Sam Fortier of the Washington Post  "With one more comeback win, at the end of a comeback season for the ages, the Nationals became World Series champions. A 6-2 victory over the Houston Astros in Game 7 on Wednesday night sealed it, delivering the first baseball title for the nation’s capital since Walter Johnson’s Senators won their only one in 1924." When I read that I thought that's what we need - A Comeback Election for the Ages . Without going into the details of why I believe we need a new president – it is clear to me and all of the thinking, growing and evolving people I know - is that the one we now have simp...

Way back in the 1800's Sigmund Freud said " Love and work... work and love, that's all there is."  I totally agree.  And now after well over twenty years helping people find loving relationship and developing productive meaningful work, I will add that you have to love your work and work your love.    What Does Loving Your Work Mean? Once back before I got my master's I was complaining to a friend that I hated my job, that it was no fun and he said,  "It's not suppose to be fun, that's why they call it work."  Well, I totally disagreed with him and that is why I quit that job and went to graduate school.  I knew in my heart that work should bring you both satisfaction and a sense of purpose and anything that does that will be, if not fun, then meaningful to you and in that meaning you will find joy.  What this comes down to is purpose.  If the work you do makes you feel you are engaged in work that has purpose and meaning both to you an...

The other day I spent some time in a classroom of severe needs students - many of them on the Autism Spectrum and some who had Downs Syndrome  and others who were otherwise unable to do most conventional academic work but what I found was they could all dance, play the guitar or mimic playing one or banging on a drum and having a delightful time using what they did have - enthusiasm, joy and energy of the human spirit - in that moment -  in that classroom.   What hit me about this, beyond the fact that I too had a terrific time dancing and singing to the music and watching these kids go for it, was the teacher in this classroom who got out his own electric guitar and amplifier and played his heart out.  He was doing what Yo Yo Ma said in an interview I watched that same night on PBS - "Whatever you do, make it count."  That teacher was making what he did as a teacher for these kids, count.  He was inspired and he was inspiring. Those kids loved what...

Do you ever have a night when you just cannot get to sleep and rather than getting up and trying to figure out why, you just lie there tossing and turning or getting a book and distracting yourself.  I know I've had these and so have many of my clients. I call these nights messages from you soul - messages you will be glad to hear and act on as soon as you figure out what your soul is trying to tell you.   Of course, this is not simply a take the call and do what you're told to do.  The soul speaks in symbolic language which is often difficult to grasp.  But grasp it you must or more of these nights will show up for you.  One way to help figure this out is to do Morning Pages - an idea by Julia Cameron who wrote The Artist Way , a book written to help artists and would be artists allow their creativity and artistic nature come to fruition.  But of course you do not need to be an artist or even a would be one to benefit from Morning Pages. Morning Page...

The hand you got dealt at birth is the hand you will need to play to win at the game of life.  I call this the Hand of God and it's your job to make it work for you and the rest of the world.  This hand will have some terrific cards, I call these your Genius cards, but it will also have some troubling ones, or ones the world does not value very much or ones that put you into chaotic places, I call these your Idiot cards.   Last night I watched the second installment of Ken Burns show on PBS about country music.  As a southerner and someone whose father was a country music singer and song writer I found myself fascinated by this program.  I knew all the singers and song writers they featured.  I even knew most of the words to the songs.  There I was singing along to Your Cheatin' Heart, I'm so Lonesome I Could Die and If You've Got The Money Honey I've Got the Time.  This surprised me as I never thought of myself as a country music...